Now that former Arkansas governor, marathoner and bassist Mike Huckabee has dropped out of the race, let's talk about where he goes from here.

I'm hoping, for the sport if nothing else, that he will make a run for Senator Mark Pryor's seat in November. The filing period in Arkansas ends Monday at noon, so Huck's still got some time. No Republican has filed for the race, so Pryor's unchallenged at the moment.

As of January 31, Huckabee had $929,401 on hand for his presidential bid. Assuming he didn't blow all of that since then, that's enough seed money to start a senate campaign. Huckabee has also built a modest national fundraising network, and presumably could attract more from donors who've taken note of him but weren't willing to commit to his presidential run.

The Arkansas GOP is in a wretched state right now. In 2006 the Dems won every state-wide office and gained three seats in the state House. The party has a chairman who is prone to stick his foot in his mouth and who couldn't even win a state House seat.

When Huckabee left the state to run for the White House he wasn't very popular among the fiscal conservatives who dominate the Republican politics in the northwest of the state. That's because he was seen as a moderate on taxes and budget issues and on immigration. Also, as Max Brantley of the Arkansas Times notes on his blog, Huckabee made his concession speech in Texas, not Arkansas. Max asks:

Did anybody else notice how little his campaign was tied to Arkansas?

Some of the Arkansas pols I came across on the campaign trail this year suggested the party is saving its fight for 2010, when Sen. Blanche Lincoln is up for reelection. She's seen as more vulnerable.

Finally, Jay Barth, a political scientist at Hendrix College in Conway, Arkansas, tells me the national party won't be too enthusiastic about a Huckabee run this time around because it would draw heaps of national Democratic money to the state, as well as the Democratic turnout organisation. Arkansas is in play in the presidential race, and the GOP doesn't want to attract Democratic resources for that reason.